The Before and After

                                                               

I've recently signed up for unlimited yoga. I can go as many times as I want for $50 a month and it is a three month membership. I completed my first class two days ago and today I have my next class. In the midst of preparing for take two of my attempt at becoming flexible, the notion of taking a before and after photo crossed my mind. Considering I'll be doing this for the next three months, there are bound to be changes in my body that will be worth seeing. The before sitting next to the after would surely be a sight to behold! You should also know that I've done this before. I began a weight loss journey almost three years ago and lost 55 lbs. I am the proud owner of pretty great before and after picture from that one! That being said, the idea of creating the first half of another one of these before and after photos is quite appealing and motivating to me. Yet, as I thought about which outfit would reveal the most change a new thought hit me...
                                                                       
Why are we so drawn to before and after pictures?

Scrolling through Facebook and flipping past commercials, it seems so many of us (myself included) are drawn into the contrast of a good before and after photo shoot. Someone lost 150 lbs, this guy has a full head of hair again, look at this room before and after a $5.75 makeover, a model before photo shop and after, celebrities with makeup and without, or my favorite, the "my acne disappeared overnight" photo. A snapshot like that compares two moments in time of the same person. This is the magic of a before and after picture; somehow the journey with all it's struggle, pain, and persistence, gets wrapped up in one 4x6 color photo.

As I notice the strange phenomenon of comparing one second of ourselves to another, I am struck with how much this craze ignores the journey that commences between the two. Do we even care about that part of the picture or are we too obsessed with what we'll be at the end? Is it far enough from where we started? Isn't the important part the journey? Or is it the end result? Some might feel differently on that point but personally I think the part that matters most is all the seconds in between the dreaded before shot and the candid after. If only we could capture the seconds inside a photograph and all that transforms outside of a simple still image.

I don't think I'll be taking a before and after photo for this particular transformation. I think instead I'll do my best to track the day to day changes within me; the changes beyond the surface, the difference that a photo cannot capture. Maybe it's strength, resilience, determination, or patience but whatever it is, I think I'll point a different lens at myself this time around. A different lens will seek out and challenge everything in-between the before and after. I will strive to embrace each second of the journey instead of culminating everything into frozen image.

It's about each moment not just the one where you start and the one you end up in.

All Things

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You are in all things. All things.

[ Romans 8:28 ]

When I look around the darkness that surrounds me, Yahweh, you are suddenly everywhere-hovering in the cool fog yet somehow I feel incredibly far away from you, here, in this lonely place. Despite the fact that your very breath is beading upon my skin, my heart continues to sink with the earth.
You've ordained this darkness and that is becoming more and more obvious each time my attempt to escape it fails. I can run but I can't hide and I ask myself, "Why run? Why hide? Why not face the darkness that chases me?"

Evertime I try and cling to a light other than your own Lord, it suddenly slips from my grasp like an elusive lightening bug. It hovers away, taunting me as it flashes it's life light asking,

 "Where is yours?" 

It's a dark, cold, and quite forest. I'm paralyzed in waiting. The season of self-salvation is over and my own strength can no longer pick myself up as it seems to have evaporated into the air around me. Now, I need a savior who will come gently in and save me from my slumber.

But, there is first something here in the "all things" that is desperate for me to discover it. So, I'll put my hands by my side and give way to the insane idea that this cold, dark season can actually produce fruit and truth. As the harsh winters of this earth are divinely ordained-this must be too.

Blessed

Isaiah 30:15-18

"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. 
You said, ' No. We will flee on horses.' Therefore you will flee!
You said, ' We will ride off on swift horses.' Therefore your pursuers will be swift...
Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you, He rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!"

Quiet: hushed, still, motionless, calm, or serene

You tell us where our strength is when the enemy presses in. You tell us our posture and you even call out the instinctive fears within us-flee and flee quickly. You tell us how to be and where salvation is but since this goes 100% against this world and our limited common sense, we flee and we flee quickly. 

In the end, you are still compassionate God and you call those who wait on you

blessed. 

I'll wait on you in trial and pain as a mother waits upon her baby in childbirth. A great blessing is coming-be still and quiet. Do not flee but endure this waiting for those who wait on the Lord are blessed. 

Don't think about how long because that will cause anxiety. Think about your Lord and exist in this difficult place. Let the darkness strengthen you and the agony build your patience like a great wall not easily broken. The refining fire is incredibly painful and will lap up all that should not be. It will burn and burn and only when it's refined everything in its grasp to a soft white dust will it go out. 

Wait. 

Don't douse your refining fire. 

Let it burn.